Playing World War by Storm8

World War (WW) is a popular massively multiplayer online war game by Storm8 that plays on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is free to download from the App Store but be warned, it can be very addictive.

In order to really enjoy the game and avoid the frustration of being continuously farmed by powerful players later on, it is imperative that one gets the fundamentals right from the start. In this hub, I hope to share with all new and prospective WW players three important principles to give you a head-start to an enjoyable gaming experience. However, I have consciously avoided an exact prescription of what you need to do so that you can discover some of the fun for yourselves, but the general principles will serve you well. I imagine that the principles will work for most, if not all, Storm8 role-playing games.

This hub is specifically for the absolute newbies out there like how I was when I first started. I am by no means an expert player although I do get by fine in the game, but all the veterans out there, please feel free to comment and advise so that we can all learn.

Enjoy the game!

There are a number of key definitions that you need to be aware of in the game:

Missions – These are tasks you can carry out with the necessary units and energy level in order to earn i) cash; ii) experience; and iii) loot i.e. special items (sometimes). Do not worry about completing the missions, I will elaborate more on this later on.

Units – These are the military units that will help you in defending yourself from or attacking other WW players. Note the upfront cost of acquiring a unit as well as upkeep i.e. running costs that you incur every 60 mins. The number of units that you can bring into battle is a function of the number of allies that you have i.e. 1 ally = 6 units.

Battle – This is the screen where you will be able to see i) players from other countries similar to you in terms of level and number of allies, whom you can choose to attack; ii) see a list of sanctioned players whom you can choose to attack to receive cash and register kills.

Buildings – These buildings can help you i) generate income; ii) increase defense; or iii) obtain special abilities such as faster replenishment of energy.

Honor Points - Honor Points are like cheat points, allowing you to exchange them for cash, energy/life replenishments, name/country change and also a mystery package. You can do these exchanges on the President screen. You can receive Honor Points through i) promotional offers that will be flashed on your WW home screen e.g. download another Storm8 game and receive 20 Honor Points!; ii) purchase/download Honor Point packages from the App Store; iii) purchase through offers at the bottom of your President page (occasionally).  

Health – This is similar to your life-force - when it reaches zero, you have been killed. However, there are no terrible implications for being killed apart from registering one death. It is a pride thing. You typically cannot be killed unless you have been sanctioned. Apart from time, you can replenish health by using the Restore function, provided you have medics and money in the vault. Health can also be replenished using Honor Points, although I advise against that – it is a waste of Honor Points.

Energy – This is what you need to perform a mission. Nothing more. Energy can be also be replenished with the passage of time or with Honor Points, and again, I advocate the former.

Sanction – In WW, you will find that you are only able to attack other players of a similar level to you in order to keep a level playing field. However, you can choose to put any player on the sanction list and he/she will be fair game for all WW players, regardless of level. Please do this sparingly as players get very irritated with being put on sanctions and it typically does not pay to irritate a vastly stronger player.

Farming – This is a situation where a player continuously gets attacked by another stronger player. A most unpleasant experience and one that I hope you will not find yourself in. Most players will also tolerate up to three attacks, but any more will likely put the player and his/her clan on your tail.

Camping – This is when a player avoids improving his/her level and uses the time to build up income generating and defense assets. Completing too many missions will cause you to level up too fast and expose yourself to powerful opponents before you have had a chance to build up your defenses. I personally do not see much point in completing missions apart from obtaining skill points and these you can also obtain from registering kills on the sanction list. You should choose the right levels to camp at (i.e. when you want to build up enough of a specific income generating or defense asset).

Before anything else, build income-generating buildings when you first start. At the very beginning, you will probably have to complete some missions in order to accelerate the cash build-up, but be careful not to level up too fast.

You will also want to get the maximum out of each dollar, so when it comes to choosing which building to have at any point in time, do this – divide the cost of the building by the income that it will generate. This is the cost per dollar income ratio. This will become important in helping you determine which building to build at any point in time. The cost of a building increases by 10% every time.

Do not worry about acquiring units, expecially those that require upkeep, at the start. You want to focus all your resources on generating income. You will also find that you will be attacked very often and lose very often. That will result in you losing your hard-earned cash. So, even though it will cost you 10% each time you deposit cash in the vault, DO IT. You will probably lose more if you get beaten so use the vault and build up a nice reserve over time which you can use to build more income-generating assets.

Repeat the above until the income you generate every 60 mins is enough for you to acquire most of the assets in your Building screen.

You should never stop building your income, however, once your income is comfortable, you should also start using some of the cash to build your defense assets. The idea is to gradually build up your defensive assets so that you start to win most of the attacks against you. You can estimate the probable attacking strength of another player at your level i.e. number of allies you have multiplied by the max attack score of any unit available at your level. If your defensive assets gives you a defensive score close to or higher than that, you are pretty safe.

You will periodically receive requests to become allies. Consider these carefully as you will be matched against players with a similar number of allies as you.

Allies will only help you as much as you can afford to equip them with units. When you are being attacked, all your defensive buildings will add to your strength and each ally you have will be able to bring into battle six of your strongest defensive units, all of which will add up to your defensive score for that battle. For example, if you have 100 allies, they can bring up to 100 x 6 = 600 units into battle. And you will likely be matched with another player that has a similar number of allies. However, you will be in trouble if you can only afford 50 units as the rest of the allies will become more of a liability in that they attract similarly-allied opponents.

When you are stronger, you can choose to join a clan or start one yourself so that you can take collective action against any enemy. You can often tell clan members from their names - they will have a common prefix or suffix. Think how ants fight. The downside is that you can sometimes be obliged to join a senseless melee started by some immature clan member.

I strongly advocate staying low profile when you just start out – do not initiate battles, nor respond to any. If you utilize your cash quickly or keep them in the vault, attackers will not get much out of their wins and they will leave you alone. Similarly, when they attack you and lose consistently, they will also move on.

Also, try to avoid leaving comments on your adversaries' profile – this will allow them and their allies to maintain a link to you and to continuously attack you. There is no point engaging in a battle of words.

It will require considerable patience from you at this stage of your gameplay, but trust me, it is well worth it. You can find a community forum with good advice at: http://forum.storm8.com/index.php.

Have fun with WW!